Bacon, Bacon, Bacon. And More Bacon.

What do you when a stack of links – all pertaining to bacon – land in your email inbox? You spend the next hour going from link to link, of course, marveling at the sheer, um, ingenuity behind what can only be described as a form of mass hysteria. Years from now, social scientists will look back at the first decade of the 21st century and wonder about our society's obsession with side pork. Was this a form of religious devotion, they'll wonder. Did people believe that eating bacon, or writing about it, or even wearing it, would bring successful harvests? Monetary success? Whiter teeth? Bacon Haikus speculates:

our obsession with the thin, delicious slices of pork-fat goodness continues unabated. Many of us – OK, some of us; OK, one of us – have even found ways to combine our love of bacon en tranches, as the French would say, with our other passions. Star Wars, for example. Earlier this year, Fayetteville, Ark., resident Nick Hamon constructed an AT-AT Walkerentirely from Styrofoam and bacon (he is also the creator of a bacon-wrapped AK-47 assault rifle: clearly, the sociologists of the future will have some serious research to do).

Bacon has a philanthropic side, as well. Ashley's Team, an organization dedicated to brightening the lives of kids with cancer and their families, is selling a Bacon Kevin Bacon on eBay. Made from bacon and bacon bits, the life-sized bust of actor Kevin Bacon is currently going for more than $4,000 dollars on eBay (Yes, you still have to time to place your bid but if you win, don't plan on eating Mr. Bacon. He is not, alas, edible).

Most of us, of course, sublimate our bacon desires in somewhat more mundane ways. We hang it from Christmas trees, use it to hold up notes on our refrigerators, and wear it for those special nights out on the town. Pork chops, lovely though they are, simply aren't as adaptable and tofu, of course, doesn't have the right, um, well, whatever it is that bacon has that makes it so useful in so many ways.

Bacon proves it adaptability once again by being available in many other guises: vodka, mayonnaise, salt, envelopes, underwear, and something called the "Bacon Explosion" which the British Telegraph described as "one of the most popular meal ideas in the world" shortly after its appearance in cyperspace almost two years ago.

No doubt, cardiologists are probably still reaping the benefits today.

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